Corruption: Drivers, Modes and Consequences

Corruption has become ubiquitous in both the private and public sectors of rich and poor countries across the globe. It occurs in various modes and always causes human suffering, particularly on the most innocent poor and vulnerable, the same humans who have neither the means nor resources to resist or escape. The chapter investigates corruption, where and how it happens, its drivers, causes, and strategies used to conceal it when and where it happens. It looks at the growing movement of anti-corruption activism and the factors key to the success of this movement. The factors steering the anti-corruption drive are knowledge, confidence, solutions and intolerance to corruption. Literature makes some distinction between petty and grand corruption. While corruption is seen as either petite or grand, there are two factors that make corruption indistinguishably concerning: systematisation and the multiplier effect. What may look like petty corruption will in the long run have huge repercussions on more than the two or so who started the corrupt act. Petite or grand, corruption kills, its devastating impact on the social, economic, financial, developmental and political lives of communities is gusty and puffy. Technology is making a footprint in the fight against corruption as much as it is worsening the scourge of corruption on humankind